Emma’s positive birth story: Hands off my baby!

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This is a guest post, kindly donated by Emma, who decided to decline the kind offer of induction and await spontaneous labour. She does not offer this story to persuade you to do the same, should your pregnancy proceed past your ‘due date’, but to counter-balance some of the pressure society can put on ‘over-due’ mothers. She reminds us that we almost always have choices and encourages us to exercise our rights to those choices. Thank you for honouring us with your story, Emma!

Avoiding induction and my 10-month pregnancy…

Emma and her daughter

If you’re pregnant, ‘overdue’ and facing the prospect of induction, this is for you. A few months ago I was in the same situation and it helped so much to know that I wasn’t alone and that I didn’t have to meekly submit to the NHS. I carried my daughter to almost 43 weeks and she was born perfect, healthy and not a moment too late.

Throughout my pregnancy I was so careful. I ate well. I didn’t take a single painkiller. I carried on running until 7 ½ months, and went for long walks right up until the day before the birth. I was so determined that my body should be in tip-top shape to bring my little girl into the world. We had planned a natural home birth and nothing was going to stop me…try as it might!
When my ‘due date’ came and went, I wasn’t surprised. I was born 2 weeks late so I was expecting a longer-than-usual pregnancy, yet those last few weeks dragged on. I honestly believed I’d be pregnant forever. But the fatigue and the nervous waiting were nothing compared to the pressure to be induced. My goodness, you’d think that babies were never born before the invention of Syntocinon. Or that tragedy was certain to befall every baby who took a few more days to mature in utero. And yet every birth horror story I’d heard had begun with induction or a membrane sweep – benign terms for messing with a very delicate hormone system and ruining a perfectly healthy pregnancy. Didn’t anyone notice the correlation, I wondered? Nobody was going to evict my little girl from the loving home I’d made her. I told her repeatedly that she was safe and welcome to stay as long as she needed.

As soon as the ‘due date’ hit, I was ‘offered’ induction by my midwife, which I declined and made clear this was not something I wanted. But every time I interacted with the NHS, the pressure became stronger. They scheduled daily calls asking me to go into hospital. Daily calls! They wanted to talk incessantly about the risk of stillbirth as time went on (which is still infinitesimal, if you do your own research). They were scared about me carrying my baby past their schedule; I wasn’t. I could just feel that everything was OK. But it was incredibly stressful to fend off constant negative suggestions, and I’ll always be angry about how the last few days of my pregnancy were made so unnecessarily difficult when they should have been so peaceful. I was told that to encourage labour to start I should avoid stress (adrenaline) and stay happy (oxytocin). That was difficult while I imagined my midwives tapping their feet and checking their watches.

At 42w 4d I went into hospital for ‘monitoring’ and being strapped to a monitor for 45 minutes showed that, as I knew, everything was perfectly fine with the baby. The only thing wrong was that she had confused the midwives by not appearing when they expected her to. People in my local coffee shop and neighbours passing my house commented that ‘baby will come when ready’. They seemed wiser than the people with years of training and experience. Stories about ‘late’ babies by perfect strangers on the internet were a strange source of comfort. I felt like a medical freak. I was told that nobody goes past 42 weeks because by that point, they’ve been pressured into induction…so no wonder the midwives were nervous. They had no precedent to follow, no procedure with tick boxes laid out in my maternity notes folder.

Labour finally started all by itself at 42w 5d and I proceeded with a totally natural birth at home. There was no pain relief apart from a pool of hot water, just the power of sheer determination. I used just two of the many, many visualisation techniques I’d practised, and leaned heavily on my husband and my wonderful doula for TLC and encouragement. After five hours of active labour my daughter was born weighing 6lbs 5oz, with an Apgar score of 9 and showing no sign whatsoever of post-maturity; a vigorous pink knot of lustful yelling. (In fact, I learned that there was a true knot in my daughter’s umbilical cord – most likely the result of her turning breech at 37 weeks and then back again at 39 weeks in two huge movements. So turning head down very, very late is also possible without intervention…but a very scary thing to wait for!)

She headed straight for the breast and nursed happily for 45 minutes. The midwives commented on how healthy she looked. I should probably mention that the NHS midwives who attended the birth were just awesome. My experience of the NHS as a cold processing plant was totally at odds with the dedication and care those two women showed me.

If I had given in to other people’s fear and agreed to induce, my daughter could have been almost three weeks premature by her own terms, and would probably have endured birth trauma as a result of being forced out. To me, that was FAR more dangerous than waiting for nature to get things started.

The most important lesson I learned was: trust yourself. Others are scared because they can’t feel what you can feel. I knew my body was designed to carry this baby. I’d got through nine months (OK, ten months…) perfectly safely and didn’t believe my body would just ‘give up’ at the end. That kind of faith is frowned upon in conventional medicine because it can’t be controlled or rationalised. I chose to listen to people who respected my judgement and supported my positive attitude, and it was the best decision I’ve ever made.

I was pressured to have an induction and neither my baby nor my body was remotely ready. Labour was hard and fast, I didn’t dilate and, predictably, my gorgeous girl was born with forceps as I simply wasn’t able to deliver her due to a strong but necessary (by that point) epidural.

I love this inspiring guest blog and would definitely fight against an induction next time around.

I absolutely can relate to having the end of pregnancy be this stressful thing when all I wanted was a peaceful end to a wonderful journey! My daughter was born at 41 weeks 5 days, though a faulty dating ultrasound added five days to that, meaning that doctors were pressuring me to induce. My midwives were wonderful though (I did a consult with an OB because of going post-dates, to help protect my midwives in case something did go wrong with our home birth). One of them straight up said, “Babies are easier to take care of on the inside, so enjoy this time and get some sleep.”

Everything turned out fine with our daughter, and I was absolutely not surprised one bit by that. Our bodies don’t all gestate for the same number of days. Good for you for trusting your body and congratulations on your daughter!

This was a lovely post to read as I’ve always been up for a natural birth but already because of my age (43) and 2nd child, have been told that I should have an induction if I reach 40 weeks because of the statistics of a still birth however when I asked what the statistics were, this information wasn’t available. I am due to give birth in July and already under pressure so I know exactly what Emma means about pressure making the last few days of pregnancy difficult. I was really laid back about my pregnancy until I started going for my appointments

Thanks for this lovely post. Not sure how much this is still read but wanted to give my tuppence worth for anyone reading this whilst being pregnant –

I refused induction at 38 weeks for gestational diabetes as the risk of induction and prematurity seemed to br greater than the risks of later/naturql birth date which was 4o+6 in the end (you can imagine the pressure…!) Nonetheless we turned out to be unlucky and due to him being back to back we ended up with a 24 hour active labour that was heavily augmented (all that i had tried to avoid) resulting in me being worn out and his chin being stuck and him having shoulder dystochia. All was well in the end, but i remain torn between being glad of my choice to keep him in because he was noticebly more robust as an infant compared to my friends babys who had been induced and thinking i should have listened to medical advice which would potentially have avoided the above issues as shoulder dystochia was one of the major risks that induction was to avoid … So basically my take here is – if you go against medical advice and things then don t go to your ‘plan’ it is on you and you have to live with it having been your choice. I am not discouraging at all as in the end i was glad he came when he was ready but it is something to be aware of as there is also a chance you still might not end up with your dream birth and you will be haunted forever by “what if’s.